Advances in quantitative computing power for data processors has led to improvements in apparatus used for reproduction of media content for users. Typically, the media content may be said to be in a high definition format, with high definition being in relation to image quality of the media content and the clarity of the audio quality of the media content. It should be appreciated that high definition image quality is typically understood to mean a resolution of at least 1080 p (resolution of 1920×1080) while the high definition audio quality is typically understood to mean audio quality (including speech, background sounds and effects) which is clearly perceptible to a listener. It should also be noted that media content may include a video conferencing stream.
The aforementioned apparatus for facilitating reproduction of high definition media content typically requires higher performance than what is usually available from a single data processor. Typically, two or more data processors may be used to achieve the required performance, but may fail if data is unable to be transmitted between the data processors at an adequate speed (transfer rate). In order to manage the cost of the aforementioned apparatus, the processors being selected for use in the apparatus are typically low cost processors that do not have a large number of available data pins to serve as processor-to-processor connections.
Typically, a low cost processor used primarily for processing of media content would have an output video bus for driving a display, and would similarly have an input bus for accepting data from a sensor. An output video bus of one processor may be joined to an input bus of another processor to form a data transmission channel if the protocols are compatible. However, video buses are designed to stream data continuously and are not suitable for transmitting discrete data packets. Furthermore, a well known property of video relates to how it repeats every frame with the same timing, and this property is typically used to load data in a FIFO manner in preparation for the next frame. The continuous nature of video transmission makes it difficult to use the same protocol for conventional data transmission which takes place when required and without periodic behaviour.
Thus, it is desirable to provide an apparatus for data processing of media content using video bus as a data transmission channel without suffering any detriment in relation to both cost and performance of the apparatus.